Clay Boatright summons a lifetime of resilience to face a recent pileup of loss.

Two months ago, Clay Boatright lost his wife of 30 years to cancer. Carole died quietly in their bed, so peacefully it was as though she were trying not to wake her husband, an especially light sleeper.

A couple of weeks later, his 23-year-old daughter, Blaire, was forced to hunker down, terrified, as a series of tornadoes passed over her Nashville apartment. And the very next day, Boatright’s own life was threatened, as a fellow passenger on his flight back from a business trip to Chicago attempted to open the airplane door at 30,000 feet.

Boatright, a 55-year-old sales and marketing analytics specialist who lives in Plano, was shaken but composed. The self-described “kind of car guy” knew God had the wheel. All he needed to do was keep his eyes on the road.

Then, on March 4, the first case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed in Texas. Within two weeks, Boatright was told he would no longer be able to visit his twin daughters, 20-year-olds Paige and Mia, who live in a long-term care facility.

In a month, tragedy and distance had cut Boatright off from his entire family.

“It was like driving off a cliff,” he says.

This painting was a 2019 Christmas gift to Carole Boatright. From left are Paige, Clay, Carole, Blaire and Mia.(Jadenkai)

And yet in life, as in a bumpy car ride, Boatright still kept his eyes on the road ahead.

Boatright knows he might sound Pollyanna-ish, even naive, but being a self-described “eternal optimist” is based on solid life experience, he says.

He has Paige and Mia to thank.

His girls were born with severe intellectual disabilities. They cannot speak and need round-the-clock care. Raising them steered Boatright toward a very specific life philosophy: Take the wheel. Make the turn. Drive onward, and don’t look back.

“There’s a reason why our windshield is huge and our rearview mirror is small. That’s because what’s in front of us is significantly more important than what’s behind us,” Boatright says.

In the last few months of Carole’s life, Boatright was optimistic she would recover.

It wasn’t until the night before her passing that he realized she might soon die. While he knows this might sound like he was avoiding reality, Boatright says, he knows it was his optimism that kept Carole as happy and healthy as she was in her final weeks.

“I keep calling it hope or anticipation. And the reason for that was going back to raising Paige and Mia,” Boatright says. “I knew anything was possible.”

Boatright hasn’t seen his daughters since March 15, a few days before Gov. Greg Abbott ordered all long-term care facilities closed to visitors to help avoid the spread of COVID-19. Of everything he’s encountered in the past two months, being cut off from them has been hardest to accept.

In December 2008, Carole Boatright and her then-7-year-old twins Mia (left) and Paige were featured in a photo in The Dallas Morning News. Paige and Mia, now 20, live in a long-term care facility.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

Paige and Mia don’t understand why they have not seen their mother, and now their father, in weeks. He cannot even chat via video with them, he says, because it would be too jarring. They wouldn’t comprehend why they can’t touch him, why he’s not there.

Boatright is glad that his girls have such a dedicated, thoughtful caretaker at their long-term care home in Little Elm. Time and patience, he says, sometimes are your only choices when you’re out of options.

“This is temporary,” Boatright assures himself. “[Paige and Mia are] going to look at me and be like, ‘Where you been?’ And we’ll kind of restart the engine at that time.”

Boatright remembers the roadblocks he encountered raising Paige and Mia. But he was constantly thinking of those who didn’t have the resources he had, such as the single mom without a second parent to help out, and the families without the means to access special care. We all have something we can give, especially now, even if it’s just some advice or a kind word.

“Each one should use the gifts he has been given to serve others faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms,” Boatright says, referencing 1 Peter 4:10, his favorite Bible verse.

During this slow-reopening period, when many of us are still stuck inside, some of us alone, there’s an almost unique chance to look outward. Call a local nursing home, Boatright suggests, and talk to a resident who has no family. Watch a church service online and share what you learned. If you have the means, donate to a local charity. Call your mother.

In the past couple of months, Boatright has prayed for guidance and patience. And maybe, a bit of good news. A couple of weeks ago, he finally got it.

His daughter Blaire was on her way to Texas to hunker down with her dad during the pandemic lockdown. But first, she said, she had to tell him something: She’s engaged to be married.

“Talk about the family emotional extremes!” Boatright exclaims.

“The comedian in me does make me wonder, ‘OK, Lord, what’s next?’

“The thing is, you can’t worry about that. All you can do is look through that windshield and say, ‘I see sunlight on the other side of that storm.’”

Lauren McGaughy. Lauren is an investigative reporter based in Austin where she focuses on government accountability, criminal justice and LGBTQ issues. Before joining the investigative team, she covered Texas politics for The News and Houston Chronicle, and Louisiana politics for The New Orleans Times-Picayune. She loves cats and comic books and cooks a mean steak.